The West and the self -- Basics of philosophical psychology. Heideggerian and Cartesian self -- Free will -- Cartesian, Lockean, and Kantian self -- Extraordinariness and the two stages of rationality -- The Cartesian self in history. The cause and content of modernity -- The second-stage rationality in history -- Economic rationality -- The Cartesian self in the twentieth century -- Value spheres. A diagnosis and therapy for modernity -- Value spheres defined and the state -- The serving spheres -- Technology -- Utilitarian or Cartesian approach -- The media and the professions -- Science -- Art and religion -- Sport -- Latin and absolute love -- A self-understanding not only for the West. Is the core idea of modernity realizable at all? -- Harnessing extraordinariness -- Cartesian modernity -- The undivided, universally developed individual -- The end of history?